Even though Athena looked ready to take off right away, Arthur stopped her. Flying inside his hull was a recipe for disaster. Too cramped, too many sharp edges. He wasn't about to lose the first companion in this new life over something so stupid.

  The bird gave a sad little chirp and hopped toward the open hatch.

  Arthur chuckled in his head and followed, using this moment to pull up the Drone Bay's menu again. The whole 'find a name for the bird' distracted him so much that he forgot to check what it actually took to upgrade Athena and produce a fleet.

  Let's see… he hummed. A moment later, his mind froze. Thirty upgrade points?! What the hell?!

  Even worse, the menu didn't show him what the upgrade would accomplish. It just gave him a price, and that was it. At the very least, it could have given him a quick rundown or a name, as it did for the other parts. But no, he got nothing here.

  So upgrading you is like opening a mystery box… Not sure I like that, Arthur mused. Makes planning for the future a bit harder.

  Not like he could do anything about that, so he returned to the main menu and chose the second option. There, the System once more decided to keep things simple. Name, price, and a very polite message that he was way too poor to even think about producing anything.

  350 Omnimatter(I) required to produce one unit of Fleet Drone. You do not possess the required resources. Try again later. [Current Omnimatter(I): 130]

  Arthur shut the menu with a groan. Like always, every nice thing had to be pricey. Some stuff just didn't change, no matter what life he lived.

  One day I will have it all… probably… maybe…

  Outside, under the morning sun, he floated to the top of his turret and waited for Athena to join him there. She emerged a moment later, struggling to hop through the hatch.

  Arthur definitely didn't laugh when she almost slipped and dropped to the ground. The stink eye she threw at him afterward? That one made him chuckle a bit, though. She might be a drone-bird hybrid, but she clearly wasn't in full control of her body yet. Being born fully grown didn't change the fact that she was still a baby.

  Athena squawked at him when she heard that thought.

  Okay, okay, calm down, he soothed over their link. I won't call you a baby again if your first flight goes well and you land without crashing. Deal?

  A strange glint entered Athena's dark eyes. She chirped and nodded.

  Go on then. Show me what you got.

  That was all the encouragement she needed to spread her wings again and launch into the sky. She did that so fast that Arthur was left staring blankly at her as she circled above the ruined building he hid inside. Sure, every now and then she wobbled a bit, but it was still quite a decent first attempt for a bird not even a day old.

  System bullshittery at its finest, he thought, amused. He was about to tell her to try flying farther when he felt a tug at their connection. What?

  The pull came again, this time paired with an eager chirp. He understood that Athena wanted to show him something, but for once, the Mutual Understanding skill refused to tell him what exactly she meant by that.

  That left him with only one choice.

  He stopped resisting and let Athena pull his mind into their bond.

  Silent Observer shattered, and darkness consumed his vision. Not for long, though.

  Once the pull on his mind stopped, Arthur opened his eyes again to a bird's-eye view of his vessel and the hellscape stretching around it. Different sensations followed. Be it that of muscles moving. Of hundreds of tiny mechanisms working in harmony. Or of the wind biting at 'his' feathers.

  Wow…

  It was all he could think of as realization struck him. He wasn’t just seeing through Athena’s eyes. No, he was inside her body, sharing it. Not as a passenger, either, but as a co-pilot. He wasn’t moving her wings or managing any of the subsystems, but he knew he could if he wanted.

  A chirp echoed in his mind, confirming it.

  So strange… Arthur marveled at the flood of new but old sensations. I forgot what this feels like. My vessel is just a machine, but you… you still have some flesh. Thank you.

  Athena responded with a happy caw and banked hard to the right, finally flying away from his vessel. This maybe should have worried him, but it didn't.

  After all, even though they shared a body now, he could still reach his true vessel and control every single subsystem. He even forced open the cannon's 'eye' to confirm that, and it activated without a delay. Only Silent Observer had gone dark.

  Interesting…

  With each passing second, Athena pushed farther and farther away from his vessel. She even spotted a group of patrolling demons in the distance and shot toward them.

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  Unfortunately, halfway there, Arthur had to stop her.

  Their connection, perfect and stable until that point, began to stutter. His vision blurred a bit, and the various sensations vanished from his mind. Then, there was the notification.

  Warning! Your Drone Commander (Athena) is reaching the limit of your current signal range. She may still function outside it, but Quick Resupply and Communication will no longer be possible.

  Athena turned around at once. She didn't even need convincing. Hell, if anything, it felt like she was afraid to push beyond his range. That might be just him misinterpreting their connection, though.

  Resupply, huh? he mused, his attention returning to the notification. Makes sense, I guess. I don't have unlimited ammo and fuel, so why would you? But the 'quick' part… should mean you can still generate everything on your own, right?

  To test his theory, Arthur examined all the subsystems Athena had available to her. He had no idea what more than half of them did, but some parts seemed familiar. Like the tiny thing that reminded him of his own Generator. It was weak, much weaker than what he had, but if it could create ammo…

  Then maybe you aren't as dependent on me as I thought. Good.

  There were a few other issues he could think of, but those could wait. He had lingered in these ruins long enough. Now, with some more ammo produced and Athena by his side, the show could go on.

  Ready? He asked once the bird returned to circling the sky above him.

  She let out a loud caw.

  Arthur fired up his engine and rolled out of the ruins.

  Look for Roots of Corruption. Still gotta find the source.

  With that, the journey across the literal hell-hole resumed.

  For an hour, maybe a bit longer, nothing interesting happened as Arthur rode deeper into the wasteland with the pace of a snail. Aside from having to pull himself out of a few holes with his Hook—an event that always amused Athena to no end—he had only managed to obliterate one small group of demons with a single HE and a quick machine gun salvo.

  No upgrade points from them, unfortunately.

  At the very least, with Athena's help, locating Roots of Corruption wasn't too hard. Which led him to this moment, once again looking through her eyes while his vessel lay hidden inside distant ruins.

  We might have a problem, he thought.

  Athena's mental reply pretty much translated to 'You don't say.'

  The problem was a tree.

  A demonic tree, to be exact. One with a crown full of burning leaves that stood in the middle of what once might have been a nice meadow. Twisted Roots of Corruption formed its trunk, stretching higher than a one-story house. Not too tall to be honest, but height wasn’t the issue here. No, it was everything that came with the strange tree.

  First, there was the Hell Gate located at its base. Dozens of roots wrapped around the portal until the two seemed like one massive, breathing organism. Again, the gate was far from huge, but it still represented one more threat.

  As did the army of demons scattered around the tree.

  Cyclopes. Fiends. Hounds. Arthur even found the annoying bats and exploding vermin hiding in their ranks. Not a lot of those, but enough to require more ammo than he had even now.

  Damn… And I'm supposed to deal with all this?

  Not that Arthur was against it. He quite liked killing every demon in his path. He just couldn't see himself winning here. Maybe if he and Athena had infinite ammo, they could pull out a miracle win before a Cyclops turned him into scrap.

  However, even if there existed such a possibility, he wasn't willing to bet his second life on a maybe. No, if he wanted to win, finish the mission, and maybe finally discover what the hell was going on, he first needed to get stronger.

  He pulled back from Athena's mind and told her to return.

  We are going hunting. Time for some upgrades.

  The first demon patrol they encountered afterward?

  Dead in seconds. Athena's machine gun was weaker than his own, but it still chewed through Fiends like they were paper. That said, no UP gained from this group either.

  Arthur didn't let that bring his mood down. He still had plenty of ammo left, and with his bird companion, finding more prey wasn't that difficult. Catching up with them, though… Well, not much he could do about that without upgrading his engine first.

  Still, the second patrol they killed finally gave him an UP. As it should. He had wasted two AP shells on the Cyclops that led the party, after all. As for the rat that somehow flanked him and downgraded his Mobility from Pristine to Healthy? Best not to think about it.

  All this placed him just one UP away from the next upgrade.

  Thankfully, he already had another target in mind.

  Go on my signal, Arthur ordered over the link, getting a chirp in response. Three. Two. One. Now!

  Right away, the red dot far away in the sky dove toward the ruins that some demons had turned into a camp. The two Cyclopes and a bunch of Fiends had no idea what happened when rock-shaped grenades fell onto their heads.

  Surprise!

  Explosions shook the ruins as Athena dumped her entire payload. Based on the feedback he got from her, both Cyclopes survived as expected, but the Fiends? A decent chunk of them died from just that.

  Good job, he praised. Fly away and make another pass once I hit them. It's my turn.

  His engine roared, and he quickly left the cover of a massive boulder. A turn of his turret later, and he had the perfect view of the only exit that the Cyclopes could use. Their mistake for making a camp inside a half-destroyed fort.

  Fire!

  An AP shell left his barrel and slammed right into the face of a Cyclops that just appeared in his crosshairs. It dropped to the ground, dead as it could be.

  Reload.

  The second Cyclops stumbled out of the stone arch a moment later, almost tripping over its fallen kin. Then its lone eye found Arthur's vessel in the distance, and the rest was history.

  It raised its half-broken sword and charged ahead. Not fast enough, though.

  Bye-bye!

  Another AP hit the beast just below its neck, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. The Cyclops continued for a few more steps, then dropped to its knees. One final glare was all it managed before its face kissed the ground.

  That wasn't the end, though.

  Within seconds, the remaining Fiends burst out of the ruins. Arthur greeted them the same way he greeted most of their kind.

  With lead.

  His machine gun tore through them so fast that Athena, who had just returned to make another pass, barely had to fire her weapon. The fight was over, and the next notification only confirmed that.

  Battle won! 2 UP awarded. Your Core has grown stronger and advanced to Tier III of Inferior rank.

  Arthur would have smiled if he could.

  Time for an upgrade.